


Pueblo - Trust

by trishabooms



Series: Pueblo [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pueblo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 07:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trishabooms/pseuds/trishabooms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at the boys and their world from an outsiders’ point of view.<br/>Note: AU Season 6. The apocalypse has been averted; Lucifer is back in his cage but not without a heavy cost. Both boys are damaged and no longer able to hunt. Dean badly injured in a solo hunt gone wrong and Sam has been shattered by the memories of his time as Lucifer’s vessel and the time he spent in the cage. To protect them, from demons and hunters alike, Castiel has taken them to live amongst the pueblo dwellers of Mesa Diablo, watched over by their Shaman; Abuela Elena.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pueblo - Trust

Dr. Constance Neumann’s battered jeep ate up the miles between Santa Beatus and the Mesa Diablo, which stood out starkly against the cloudless skyline. She used to drive an S-Class Mercedes, a beautiful car. It would have been less than useless out here of course, though the air conditioning would have been welcome, but then so much of what had seemed vitally important in her old life meant little to her now.  
  
She’d been on a whistle stop lecture tour of the South West, lecturing in Albuquerque, when it had rained fire on the city and in the chaos and confusion that had followed she had seen monsters; creatures that could only have come from the depths of hell, rip apart a bus full of her fellow refugees. Just six of them survived the carnage of that night. Their rescuers and the authorities had gone to great lengths to convince them they had been mistaken, that monsters didn’t exist, but she knew better. That had been two years ago.  
  
Staying in the South West had been the easiest decision she had ever made but she couldn’t explain to others, or to herself, why she’d made it, or why she’d decided to set up a medical practice in the middle of nowhere when she could virtually write her own contract in any hospital in the country.  
  
The road that led up to the Mesa Diablo Pueblo was steep and winding, the sheer drop making her take a white knuckled grip on the wheel every damn time she drove up here.  
  
She parked the jeep up alongside the scattering of other battered vehicles that belonged to the pueblo dwellers before hauling out her gear and making the rest of the journey on foot. By the time she reached the village she was covered in a fine film of sweat, could already feel the burn of the sun on her skin. Her calves were aching from the steep walk. She was fitter now than she had been in years, she’d dropped a good seventy pounds since Albuquerque. Living out here, even in the relative luxury of Santa Beatus, had taken care of that, gone was the easy living; dinners at the best restaurants, the woman who came in to clean her apartment, the laundry service. She hadn’t lived like this since she was a lowly medical student, fending for herself with little money and even less time for herself. She’d become, to all intents and purposes a country doctor; the only doctor within a days drive for some of her patients. The work was hard, the pay was pitiful and she felt more alive than she had in ten years.  
  
She pulled in a deep fortifying breath before going to see her patients, saying hello to the children and adults she had become increasingly fond of on the way.  
  
As revelations went the fact that monsters were real was big enough for one lifetime but then six months ago Constance had had her second supernatural experience; she met an angel.

_“Arthur, are you still here?” Constance asked, coming out of her kitchen door and into her yard where, by the looks of it, Arthur and his eldest son Johnny had been hard at work most of the day.  
  
Arthur Pomeroy grinned up at her from beneath his cap. “Just about done, Doc. What do you think?”  
  
She surveyed his hard work with a mix of awe and gratitude. “That’s just amazing, I’ve never kept hens before.” Hell she’d never owned any kind of animal before today, not even a dog, now she had livestock.  
  
“Them’s good birds, give ‘em a few days to settle down and they’ll lay real good for ya.”  
  
She smiled. “I don’t know what to say, Arthur. Thank you so much.”  
  
“Don’t you be thanking me, least I could do; might have lost my Sophie and the baby if not for you. You ever need anything you just ask, you’re the best thing to happen to Santa Beatus in a long time.” He nodded slowly.  
  
Arthur and Sophie Pomeroy were the proud parents of seven children, six of them boys, of which Johnny was the eldest at fifteen. Their newest arrival, baby Daisy-Ann, had had a traumatic and slightly early arrival into the world a couple of months ago after mum had had a nasty fall. They resultant emergency surgery, which would have been a breeze at any major obstetric unit, had been touch and go, for both mum and baby and the first major test of her skills that Constance had had since she arrived here. The Pomeroy’s were a nice family who just about scraped by, even by Santa Beatus standards, their medical insurance was barely adequate and Constance had known it would be better spent on the recovery of mum and baby in hospital so she’d let things slide.  
  
Fresh eggs every morning was the Pomeroy’s way of paying her back. Looking at the little hen house and the chicken run with it’s strutting inhabitants, even though she didn’t have the least clue how to look after them, she realised that this meant more than she could adequately express.  
  
She made coffee for herself and Arthur and found a soda for Johnny, sitting outside with them in the early evening sunshine as she listened to her crash course in chicken husbandry and gave Johnny a grateful pat on the back when he promised to come by before school and help her out.  
  
She waved them off with a smile before going back into her kitchen, pondering what to make herself for dinner while watching her chickens scratch around in the dirt and feeling guilty that the thought of fried chicken was making her mouth water.  
  
Chicken sensitivities be damned, she hummed along with the radio as she started to fix dinner, at least she did until the damn thing began to crackle and whine.  
  
“Oh for goodness sake!” She wiped the flour off her hands and went to look at it, the radio was fairly new so there shouldn’t be anything wrong with it, more likely it was the electricity but the hob was still working and her generator should kick in if the supply went down. She frowned, tapping the radio as it continued to fritz and stutter.  
  
A noise behind her, like the sound of some large bird’s wings, made her turn suddenly.  
  
“Wha..?Who the hell are you?”There was a man stood in her kitchen, a man who wouldn’t have looked out of place in the rush hour streets of New York City but looked faintly ridiculous dressed in his rumpled suit and of all things a raincoat. He looked a little like her former tax accountant.  
  
“I am Castiel,” he told her solemnly. Clothing aside he was an incredibly handsome man, with dark, almost black, short, tousled hair and the most intense and compelling blue eyes she had ever seen.  
  
She took a deep breath, trying to regain a little of her composure, but there was something about this man, a presence that made her feel like she was standing in the very eye of a storm with power crackling all around her.  
  
“W-what are you doing here?”  
  
“I am in need of your assistance Dr Neumann. You need to come with me.”  
  
“Oh, right, of course.”It was nothing more sinister than someone needing her help, someone passing through, but still, why was he dressed like that? “Is someone ill or has there been an accident of some kind?”  
  
“Dean and Sam Winchester need your help.”  
  
“You need to be more specific,” she told him, not recognising the names. “What kind of help?”  
  
The man who called himself Castiel placed two fingers on the centre of her forehead and a sudden rush of images filled her head with the story of Dean and Sam Winchester.  
  
Two young men who she saw saving the world by averting the apocalypse. The cost the two of them and their family and friends had paid was astonishing and she felt her eyes fill with tears at what she witnessed.  
  
Coming closer to the present she saw the young man, Dean Winchester, being bitten by some kind of creature; a child-sized but hideous monster, it was tearing into the meat of his calf, doing the most appalling damage. She saw the wounding afterwards, the damage that had been done, all of it impossibly vivid. Then she saw Sam, a shadow of the young man she had seen before, drawn and much too thin, huddled in a corner screaming as he held his head in long fingered hands, tugging at his hair and then suddenly he was seizing, the seizure lasting far too long.  
  
The images stopped abruptly and Constance staggered from the shock, almost falling before the strange man caught her in an incredibly strong grip.  
  
“W-what was that?” She tried to pull away from him. “Who are you?”  
  
“I am an angel of the Lord. Collect together the things that you will require, Dr Neumann, we have very little time.”_  
  
She’d been tempted to laugh, but knew that it would only be the beginnings of hysteria, instead she took in the intensity of those blue eyes, that solemn expression and the absolute, compelling authority of his soft voice and was left with no doubts that the strange man was on the level.  
  
Even now, familiar with Castiel as she was, she remained uncertain how she should behave around him, whether she should offer him her hand, smile, lower her eyes or bow her head. The man was an _ange_ l and, not to put too fine a point on it, he scared the shit out of her.  
  
By the time she made it to the modest little dwelling belonging to the pueblo’s shaman, Abuela Elena, she was damp with sweat. Not all of it from the heat. The first time she had met Sam and Dean was when Castiel had touched his fingers to her forehead and transported her here. She hadn’t been able to decide which of the two brothers was in the worst state.  
  
Something with teeth to rival a shark had tried to eat the older brother, Dean’s, leg. The angel, Castiel, had done all he could to heal it but, to use Dean’s words, something had whammied his angel mojo and he simply didn’t have the juice. She’d worked together with the old shaman and the angel to do what she could to save the leg from amputation. Castiel was able to perform small acts of healing and she’d guided his hand. The shaman had magic of her own, potions and salves that had worked miracles using the most primitive of ingredients. Dean’s leg remained a mess and would need ongoing surgery, but with the angel’s help she was confident he wouldn’t lose it. How much mobility he’d regain was debatable but she was cautiously optimistic.  
  
Constance was far less confident when it came to Sam Winchester.  
  
She was so far out of her depth with him.

Her first reaction when she saw him was to insist that he be taken to a hospital. When he first arrived at the pueblo he had been emaciated and filthy. He was an epileptic ; he’d been living rough on the streets when Castiel eventually tracked him down. His mind was broken by what she’d been fairly sure was some kind of PTSD. She’d not exactly been wrong with her diagnosis but the reality of just what had happened to Sam, knowing that he’d been trapped in a cage with the devil himself, tortured for something like two hundred years had only later been made plain to her. How could someone survive that and stand any chance of remaining sane? Sam heard voices and saw people and things that weren’t there. His nightmares were so bad he barely slept at all and inevitably he woke screaming. He was so broken, so lost that Constance had no idea how to help him.  
  
Over the months things had eased and Sam had slowly started to improve. She would like to have said that she had a hand in that but this was no triumph of medicine. All she’d really been able to do was keep the young man comfortable, sedate him on occasion when things became too much, treat the epilepsy and his general health as best she could without bundling him into her car and driving him to the nearest hospital, do all she could to help him regain the weight he’d lost and treat the cuts, scratches and gouges that Sam had, too often, inflicted upon himself.  
  
Castiel had told her that everything happened for a reason. It was something she’d thought about a lot. If what he said was true, and he _was_ an angel so she supposed she couldn’t doubt him, the events that brought her here were predestined and she’d had little if any say in them, nor had Sam and Dean. If not for the terrible events that took place that night in Albuquerque, the things she had seen with her own eyes, she might well have attributed the events of the apocalypse to a series of disasters, perhaps triggered by climate change, ozone depletion or any number of other things. Reports of monsters, she knew, she would have convinced herself were the result of some form of mass hysteria. Even now, with everything that had happened, she woke up some mornings and wondered if it hadn’t all been some terrible dream. She had once asked Castiel if God had set these wheels in motion, if he had somehow guided her decision to settle here, but the angel had looked at her with grave, sorrowful, blue eyes before he vanished, the flap of mighty, unseen wings marking his departure and he had never answered her question.  
  
  
As she approached the small rock and adobe dwelling she saw that the door was open and she raised her hand to acknowledge Dean, who was sat outside on a battered-looking chair, his damaged leg, which she’d operated on again just two weeks ago, propped up on a stool.  
  
Dean Winchester was an exceptional-looking young man. In another life he might have been a male model, instead he’d had his life torn away from him when he was just a child, been forced into the brutal, gypsy lifestyle of a hunter, seeing and hunting things ordinary people could scarcely imagine. He still had that charm though, the smile that could dazzle any woman and a certain sweetness to him that was hidden beneath his mask of brash, worldly charm.  
  
“Hey, Doc.” The smile he offered her in greeting was easy and sincere, crinkling the crow’s feet at the sides of his eyes.  
  
“Dean.” She came to a grateful halt, panting with exertion. “Damn, I’m too unhealthy and way too old for this,” she moaned.  
  
“At thirty?”  
  
“Oh please,” She rolled her eyes. “The charm’s totally wasted on me, you must know that by now.”  
  
“Can’t fault a guy for trying. How you doing today, Doc?”  
  
“Exhausted but good. What about you Dean, how’s the leg feeling today?”  
  
He rubbed a hand over the knee of his good leg. “Pretty good, pain’s better than it was.” Dean was a good patient, remarkably stoic when you considered what he’d been through and what might lie ahead. Generally he was more concerned for his brother, Sam, than he was for himself.  
  
“Shall we go inside and take a look, change that dressing?”  
  
He nodded, reaching for the sticks she’d given him and carefully slipping his arms into the cuffs before slowly getting to his feet. She didn’t make any effort to help him, she knew that was the last thing Dean would want. Instead she waited patiently.  
  
“And how’s Sam today?”  
  
“He’s doing pretty good.”  
  
Sam _had_ made quite a lot of progress in the last two weeks, the catalyst seemed to be when Dean had left him for a couple of nights for his surgery. In all honesty Constance had expected a set-back, not an improvement as a result of Dean’s absence but Sam had seemed far more lucid and compliant afterwards.  
  
“Still talking?”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “Not much and he doesn’t always make sense but hey, it’s good, right?”  
  
He said it casually enough but she’d come to know Dean well since she’d been treating him, the question wasn’t rhetorical, he needed the reassurance that she could give him, especially when it came to Sam.  
  
“I think we might well be turning a corner,” she agreed, giving him a smile. It was the best reply she could muster, in truth she wasn’t sure. Sam was difficult to get a handle on and her skills in a case like Sam’s, not that there was any other case like Sam’s, were severely limited. She’d wanted to take Sam to a hospital, get a second opinion, get him somewhere where there were people more qualified to help him, but Castiel had forbidden it and even (the always-accommodating) Abuela Elena had shaken her head. There were people and creatures still hunting for Sam. According to the angel, he needed the mystical protection of the pueblo. Leaving Mesa Diablo wasn’t an option for Sam, nor was bringing someone in from the outside – not unless she faced the possibility of his permanent hospitalisation somewhere the walls bounced. She couldn’t help wondering if whether that was a temporary thing or whether the younger Winchester would never be able to leave, but it was a question she hadn’t had the courage to face.  
  
Primitive as it was, the little adobe and rock dwelling the brothers were living in was surprisingly pleasant. It was larger than she’d first realised and Abuela Elena and her people had done all they could to make it a pleasant and comfortable place for the boys. The scavenged furniture they’d put together was painted in bright colours, draped with traditional woven blankets. At the moment the two of them were living on the bottom floor because Dean couldn’t climb any higher and Sam didn’t like to sleep or rest without his brother nearby, but there was another floor above this one and a flat roof, which according to the shaman was a good place for sitting.  
  
Sam sat on the bed, right beside his brother and watched as Constance removed the dressings from Dean’s leg. He seemed to be absorbed in what she was doing, his intense gaze watching every move.  
  
“How’s it looking, Doc?” Dean was fighting for casual but you could still hear the hope in his voice.  
  
It did look a lot better than it had but the leg was still a ghastly sight, the new wound from the recent surgery adding yet another snaking scar to his collection.  
  
“It’s healing nicely,” she was happy to say. “There’s no trace of infection. I’m just going to manipulate the leg a little. Stop me if it’s hurting too much, this isn’t a pain endurance test Dean, I need to know so I can assess how much progress you’re making, okay?”  
  
He sucked in a deep breath, eyes meeting hers for just a moment before they focused on the ruin of his leg, his expression closing down. “Okay.”  
  
She knew that Dean had a high pain threshold so she was incredibly careful, for once though he seemed to be taking what she’d said to heart. In all honesty the results were better than she’d expected.  
  
“That’s good Dean.” She gave him a smile as she lowered his leg gently onto the bed and pulled out fresh dressings. “We’ll keep these on for another week and then let it get some air.”  
  
“Do I need any more surgery?”  
  
“No, I don’t think there’s anything more that surgery can do. We need to get you healed up and then start working on your mobility, and that’s going to take a lot of work.”  
  
“How much mobility are we talking about here?”  
  
“In all honesty, if you keep on healing like this then it will be a damn sight more than I expected, but I’m not going to sugar coat it for you. With a brace to support it you should be able to get around but the leg is never going to be as strong as it was and movement is going to be limited.”  
  
“So, this is it, huh, as good as I’m gonna get?” He said it with a grim smile as she redressed the leg.  
  
“I’m sorry Dean.”  
  
“Could have been a whole lot worse, Doc, I...”  
  
Whatever he was about to say was cut off when Sam suddenly leaned forward and reached out one of his big hands to pat his brother on the shoulder.  
  
“Hey, Sammy.” He gave his brother a smile that was beautiful to behold, and Constance realised it was the first real one that she’d seen. It was a little like staring at the sun. He covered his brother’s hand with his and squeezed it gently. “We’re gonna be okay,” he assured Sam.  
  
To her surprise his brother answered. “Okay,” he nodded, eyes fixed on Dean.  
  
She finished the wrapping of Dean’s leg then got up to wash her hands in the bowl that waited on the table, giving them a moment before returning to her seat on the bed.  
  
“You seem much better today, Sam.”  
  
“Sam’s having a really good week, right, Sam?”  
  
“Good,” he agreed, turning his dark, slanted eyes on her. There was real clarity in his gaze, even if it was a little more intense than she was entirely comfortable with and she found it strangely difficult to look away from him.  
  
“Albuquerque.” It was just one word and Sam said it softly, but she could feel the heat suddenly drain from her body and she shuddered. “You were so afraid,” he added.  
  
“Sam?” Dean stared at the two of them, uncertainty and worry written all over his face. “What are you saying, man? What’s going on?”  
  
“Were you _there_?” Constance asked him, wanting answers of her own.  
  
“No.” He rubbed the heel of the hand that wasn’t holding Dean’s against the centre of his forehead. “I saw it.”  
  
“Saw it,” Dean frowned. “Do you mean visions, Sammy, like before?”  
  
He shook his head, glanced at his brother. “Not visions, just... I can see.”  
  
“What about the headaches? Are they back, like before?” Dean grasped his brother’s hand a little tighter then turned to look at her. “Sam used to have visions of the future. Afterwards he’d get these killer migraines and nosebleeds.”  
  
Constance fought down the cold chill of panic that was threatening to overwhelm her and nodded at Dean before turning her attention to Sam. Sitting there on the bed, his legs crossed in front of him, hand folded with his brother’s he looked so young, so... innocent but she’d heard him say things about his time in a cage with the devil, heard him talk about the things he’d seen and done that quite frankly scared her. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d fought to get away from her when she was trying to help him, hurt her several times. To say he made her nervous was a giant understatement.  
  
“Do you have a headache now, Sam?” She kept her voice quiet, even.  
  
“No.”  
  
“I’d like to examine you, would you let me do that, touch you?” Sam didn’t like being touched and to say it had proved problematical was an understatement. “I won’t hurt you.”  
  
Sam nodded, slowly. “I know that.”  
  
He sat there, surprisingly still and calm, as she checked him over, not flinching away from her, no sign of the barely concealed panic and stress that he’d always exhibited before. In fact if anyone was stressed it was Dean.  
  
“Sammy, can you tell me what it was that you saw?”  
  
“I saw the doctor.” Sam’s eyes focused unerringly on Constance but the look was gentle. “You looked different then.”  
  
“Different how?”  
  
“Pale, fatter than you are now and...” He frowned a little. “Different clothes; a-a suit, expensive. You stood on a podium talking to a room full of people, doctors?”  
  
“I-I was on a lecture tour,” she told them, unable to keep the fear that the memory caused her from her voice. “Albuquerque was one of the stops on the tour.”  
  
“What happened, Doc?” Dean’s voice was gentle.  
  
“Fire,” Sam answered before she had a chance to.  
  
“I’ve been a doctor for more than half my life,” Constance told them. “I was something of a high flyer I guess you’d say.” Not that that really mattered now, Albuquerque changed all that.  
  
“Albuquerque was half way through my tour, there’d been a dinner and I was guest speaker. I was just getting into my stride when the fire alarm went off and the staff came to tell us that we’d have to evacuate the building. I knew it was a real fire, I caught the smell of burning and I can remember thinking it was probably the kitchens. We all filed out of the room, it was very orderly but then I glanced at one of the hotel staff, just a young girl and I could see real fear in her expression and I knew there was something badly wrong. It wasn’t until we reached the foyer and could see outside that the panic started...”  
  
“Wait.” The frown was back on Dean’s face. “It was on the news channels, remember Sam? A rain of fire, right?”  
  
“That’s what they called it,” Constance nodded. “But it didn’t come close to describing what it really was. It wasn’t rain or hail, there were fireballs raining down from the sky, the smallest of them the size of a baseball but some of them were huge; the size of a human head and larger. The hotel was burning, _everything_ I could see was burning.” She felt her hands begin to shake. “The hotel manager told us that the city was being evacuated, that the police had organized transport; buses, to get people to safety. The scary part was that to get to the buses we had to leave the hotel.  
  
“I was so afraid,” she admitted, her voice shaking. “The thought of going out there into that... I wanted to stay where I was but the hotel was burning, the fire alarm was blaring. I could feel my whole body shaking, thought I was going to faint at any moment.”  
  
Dean leant forward and took her hand, squeezed it. “It’s okay, Doc, you don’t have to...”  
  
Constance shook her head. Now she’d started she didn’t want to stop. She’d never truly shared this with anyone before, not the whole story, the true story.  
  
“Once we got outside they told us just to follow the police but it was chaos. Everyone was running for their lives. There were police and fire engines everywhere, lights flashing, sirens blaring and over the top of that you could hear people screaming and shouting and the horrible whistling noise of the fireballs as they came down.” Even now the details were etched in her mind.  
  
 _It was difficult not to run as they left the hotel, all her instincts urged her to but she did her best to calm down and listen to the police officers, do as they said. That didn’t mean that she didn’t hurry, following along with the rest of them, wishing to god that she’d gone with the flat pumps and not these ridiculous heels.  
  
The noise of the fireballs coming down and smashing into buildings, cars and screaming people was even louder outside and she found herself ducking down as she hurried with the crowd towards the waiting buses that suddenly seemed so very far away. Not that ducking down would make a hell of a lot of difference if one of those things came down on top of her. There was choking smoke and flame everywhere. The smell assaulted her nostrils, a horrible mix of burning rubber, the sickly stench of burning meat and worst of all a smell she recognized as sulphur assaulting her nostrils and making her eyes stream. She managed to keep up, stayed bunched in with the crowd, terrified that she might somehow be left behind.  
  
As they finally neared the buses there was a sudden rush of people all frantic, desperate and then they started to push and jostle, fighting breaking out around her as friendships and common sense were abandoned in favour of the urge to get away at all costs. She saw more police - and army reserves by the looks of it- trying to keep order, make people form an orderly queue. The urge to push, to get ahead was paramount in her own mind and it was difficult to reign it in, keep control of herself and stick with the others who were attempting to queue, take their turn.  
  
She let out a grateful sigh as she made it to the bus door, grabbing onto the handrail to haul herself on board. There was a sudden wrenching pull on her hair and she screamed out as she felt herself being dragged backwards, off balance, falling into the people behind her, feet and legs everywhere, someone stepping on her arm and she shrieked in pain, she was being trampled under other peoples feet, couldn’t get up, couldn’t...  
  
“Move away! You need to step back there.”  
  
She heard the sound of muffled grunts, cursing and then someone grabbed onto her, pulling her roughly to her feet.  
  
“It’s okay, lady. You’re okay.” A soldier, face smudged with soot and what might have been blood, held onto her until she found her feet, one foot suddenly shoeless. “You’re fine, ma’am, you need to get on board now, fast as you can!”  
  
“Th-thank you.” Constance stumbled awkwardly up the bus steps, her heart pounding, mind reeling as she made her way down the busy aisle, moving to the back where there seemed to be more room and dropping gracelessly into a seat, crying out in pain as her left arm made contact with the window. She cradled it to her body, panting as she willed the pain to ease. Every part of her seemed to hurt.  
  
She tried to pay attention as the bus filled up around her, another woman, young and pretty, taking the seat beside her, calling out to a man who was standing in the aisle a little further down, probably her husband or boyfriend. She thought about Ephraim, her husband, dead more than three years now, and wished he was with her. He’d been her rock, so strong, so reliable when things went wrong. Never a day went by when she didn’t miss him. Constance turned away from her contemplation of this young couple and looked out of the window as the bus set off with a lurch, craning her head to look back when she heard the sound of gunshots.  
  
“Take it easy, folks.” A voice came over the bus speakers. “We’ re part of a four bus convoy, the police are up front leading the way. We’ve set up rallying points away from the centre and we’re going to get you all there as soon as we can. There’s shelter and medical aid for any of you who need it. For now you just need to sit tight.”  
  
She let out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding and did her best to settle back into the seat, and to calm down. Her head was pounding and she reached up with her right hand to touch the back of her head. It hurt like hell and when her hand came away wet and bloody, she realised that whoever had grabbed her had ripped out a chunk of her hair. She felt the tears well up in her eyes and couldn’t prevent them from falling.  
  
The rain of fire seemed to ease the further they got from the centre of the city. She turned back again and immediately wished she hadn’t, it looked as though the whole city was burning, the fireballs still clearly coming down just a few miles behind them. It was slow going on the road, it was heavy with vehicles, private cars, trucks and an endless procession of fire trucks, police and National Guard vehicles going the other way. They picked up speed, pulling ahead, the police escort presumably responsible for that. Constance tried to relax, she was safe now, wasn’t she? She thought of cutting the lecture short, maybe going home back to New York. No one would blame her, not after this.  
  
She was lost in her own thoughts and didn’t immediately realise that the bus was slowing down. She couldn’t see much from her seat and turned to the woman next to her.  
  
“Are we stopping?”She asked her. “Have we arrived, can you see?”  
  
“I-I don’t think so.” The woman raised her voice shouting out to the man she’d called to when they’d first set off. “Frank, what’s happening?”  
  
“Looks like there’s something blocking the road, I’m not sure.” The man shouted back.  
  
The bus came to a halt and Constance watched as four or more police motorcyclists drove past the bus. She could only presume that they were going up to help clear the way.  
  
“Just something blocking the road, folks.”The driver said over the speakers. “Police are coming up to clear it. We shouldn’t be stopped here too... What the fuck is that?”There was a moment’s pause and then she heard the driver call out. “Dear god, what the fuck..?”  
  
There was a crashing sound from the front of the bus and the driver let out a desperate scream that was suddenly cut off, turning into a horrific gurgling sound. People started screaming all around. There was the noise of breaking glass, more crashing sounds and screaming but above all that there was the terrible sound of snarling, growls, as though there was some wild animal loose amongst them. Everyone in the aisle seemed to be moving, panicking, trying to get away from something she couldn’t see, the screams grew louder and there was shouting.  
  
The woman beside her suddenly screamed out. “Frank! Oh my god, Frank!”  
  
Another window broke, she saw it go and then something jumped through, something with grey leathery skin, a mouthful of sharp teeth and vicious claws. It seemed to almost hang there and look around before suddenly leaping into the melee, the hideous jaws latching on to the head of a man and biting down. Blood sprayed everywhere and panic gripped the passengers as everyone tried to get the hell off the bus, smashing at the windows at the other side, trying to climb over the other passengers to get away from the monstrous creatures that had begun to rip people apart._  
  
Constance felt her heart pounding as she vividly remembered the terror as the nightmare events of that journey replayed in her mind.  
  
“The monsters were horrific,” she told Dean. “They were like hairless gorillas, moved the same way, massive things with grey flesh, not fur, they had reptilian faces with huge teeth and claws. There were other monsters too, you couldn’t see them but you could hear their snarls and howls as they ripped people apart.”  
  
Dean shuddered. “Those were hell hounds.”  
  
“And the other things, what were they called?” She wanted to know.  
  
“I’m not sure,” Dean admitted. “I think I remem... I think I know what they might have been, did the things have black-in-black eyes?”  
  
Constance nodded, shivering at the memory of those dead eyes. “Like a shark’s.” It was the only comparison she could make.”  
  
“I don’t know what they’re called,” Dean admitted.  
  
“A lesser demon,” Sam’s voice was soft, quiet. “A thing formed from the detritus of the pit, the blood, flesh and excrement of every tortured soul moulded into something real and mindless that feeds on the fear of others.”  
  
“Sam?” Dean frowned at his brother. “How do you know that?”  
  
“L-Lucifer, he knows.”  
  
“He’s not here, you’re not seeing him are you, Sam?” Constance shared his concerns, Sam had had hallucinations before.  
  
He shook his head. “No, I-I know.” He frowned, clearly struggling to express himself. “When he was in me I knew everything Lucifer knew, just like he knew me.” He looked at Dean. “I-I remember things, but, it’s better now.”  
  
He was so earnest yet lost somehow, as though he wanted to say more but didn’t know quite how, she watched him tentatively reach across to Dean once more, fisting his hand in his elder brother’s shirt.  
  
“You, you...”  
  
“Sam?” It was Dean’s turn now to grab his brother’s shoulder, squeeze it gently. “It’s okay, Sammy.”  
  
“You went away, to get better, Cas took you...”  
  
“For the surgery?” Dean asked him. “When I went for the last surgery?”  
  
Sam nodded repeatedly. “Abuela Elena stayed and I tried so hard but you weren’t here and everything...” He rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead again.  
  
“Abuela Elena said that she gave you the shot of sedative I left.” Constance prompted him.  
  
“She sat with me, stroked my hair. I-I remember she was chanting.”  
  
“Chanting what, Sammy?” Dean’s voice was gentle, his bright green eyes intense as he looked at his brother. They were so close these two, so dependent on each other  
  
“P-prayers, I think, to i-invoke the spirits. I could see animals and b-birds moving through the sunlight, feel them brush against me and it felt good, i-it made the screaming and the voices quiet down so I could think.”  
  
“It’s been getting better?”  
  
“It’s- slow.”  
  
“Slow’s good though,” Dean turned that heart-stopping smile on her. “Right, Doc?”  
  
“Slow is very good.” She turned to Sam, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. “There were just six of us that survived from the bus that night and one, a little boy, died in the hospital a week later. I was so lucky. I don’t remember doing it but I somehow crawled beneath one of the seats, that’s where the army eventually found me.  
  
“They tried to convince us that what happened that night, the things we saw that killed so many, were something else entirely. They claimed we’d been attacked by some fanatical terrorist group and I...” She hung her head, the shame she felt at the memory was almost overwhelming.  
  
“You went along with it?” There was no judgement in Dean’s voice, just understanding.  
  
“I couldn’t tell them about the monsters, I knew what would happen to me if I did and to be honest there was a large part of me that just wanted that easy explanation to be the truth.” Who would have believed her? Her life, her career, would have been over. “I said what they wanted to hear, a couple of the others did the same, went through the motions. No one would have believed the truth, but you know that.”  
  
Dean nodded, his eyes sympathetic. “So why come to Santa Beatus, why didn’t you go back to the life you had before?”  
  
“No more cities.” Sam spoke before she could answer, his words disturbingly accurate. “You were afraid.”  
  
“I tried to go home, back to New York, but suddenly it seemed so small, so restrictive. I couldn’t stop watching the sky, expecting it to happen again.” She gave them both a smile. “It wasn’t exactly something I could get therapy for, so I came back south, looked for a simpler way of life, without complications and found it in Santa Beatus, or so I thought, until I met an angel.” Her smile broadened.  
  
“Do you regret it now?” Dean asked.  
  
“No. I asked him a while ago if my being here was planned, preordained somehow. He didn’t answer me but I think perhaps it was. This is the first time I’ve told the truth about that night to anyone…”  
  
“Yeah, well…” Dean began.  
  
“No, don’t make light of it, Dean. I could have told you weeks ago, I know your history, but…”  
  
“Trust.” Sam’s dark eyes met hers.  
  
Constance nodded. “I think I kept it all inside for so long that I didn’t think I could ever share that night with anyone, but I’m glad that I have.”  
  
“We trust you too, you know. Right, Sammy?”  
  
Sam’s smile was a beautiful thing to behold, far more eloquent than the words he still clearly had difficulty grasping on to. It gave her a glimpse of the young man that lay beneath that troubled mind and damaged soul. She didn’t know if Sam’s progress could be attributed to some kind of intervention by the spirit world or if it was just a product of his dogged determination to get better for his brother but it eased the doubts she had that he would recover.  
  
She packed away her things, ready for the journey home and found herself back in doctor mode, going over the boys’ medications with them, giving them the usual list of do’s and don’t’s. She felt lighter somehow, less burdened by the events of that night in Albuquerque. The horror of it was still there, they weren’t the kind of memories that would ever go away but perhaps sharing them had helped to make them a little less raw, a little easier to deal with.  
  
She put her bag over her shoulder and made for the door. “I’ll see you both next week, but if there are any problems just send word.”  
  
“We will, thanks Doc. Oh, and Doc…”  
  
“Eggs,” Sam told her with a soft smile.  
  
“This mind reading shit’s gotta stop, Sam!” Dean protested.  
  
“Know you,” the younger Winchester’s smile broadened, “’s easy.”  
  
She left with Dean still protesting, knowing that she ought to be disturbed by this possible new found ability of Sam’s. But she’d survived monsters and was acquainted with an angel. A mind reading Winchester she could take in her stride.  
  
 **The End**


End file.
